BOC gets P192 million to upgrade ICT

THE Department of Budget and Management has released around P192.6-million to immediately address the information and communications technology (ICT) needs of the Bureau of Customs, including the upgrade and rehabilitation of its ICT system for revenue generation.

As per the BOC financial plan for its IT infrastructure maintenance project, the assistance will be used for network infrastructure, P35M; legacy system migration, P21M; system software license renewal, P30M; technical support services, P16M; nationwide onsite functional support, P20M; database analysis and archiving, P24M; and system application maintenance, P26M.

BOC also has other ICT projects in the pipeline like the online x-ray imaging system and the petroleum inventory system.

There is likewise a growing demand for information sharing or exchanges in the BOC website, particularly among regular site visitors and other government agencies in need of data.

“As we work toward improved revenue administration to generate more resources for socioeconomic projects, we have to address and pre-empt potential problems stemming from our revenue agencies’ outdated or overloaded ICT systems,” it stressed.

The BOC earlier lamented technical problems in its ICT infrastructure like servers reaching end-of-life status and risking a total crash at any given time; expiration of several software licenses; higher occurrences of equipment breakdown; compromised network ability to cope with the increasing number of import transactions; and databases nearing full capacity, requiring the immediate creation of comprehensive archives. (CGC)